The Godlings
by BrimstoneVomit
Summary: Started in 2008, I am only recently re-typing and finishing this tribute (/love letter) to H.P. Lovecraft. Although it doesn't reference any of Lovecraft's mainstay Great Old Ones, I feel its tone and original creatures allow it to fit quite comfortably in the Cthulhu Mythos.
1. Chapter 1

It was just a week ago that I discovered this journal. It was given to me by a young lady, I suppose no older than eight years. She said she found it in the woods behind her family's property, sitting upon a crude assembly of rotten boards and matted heavily with browned autumn leaves which did their portion to protect the pages through decades of winter. What she described of the site was not unlike an altar of temporary and unkindly nature. Nearby, she said there was a pile of moldy, decrepit blankets, some softer than others; my guess, a tent.

Apparently the book's owner was camped at this particular spot in the woods of New England, and it didn't surprise me - especially with the dates given in the writing - that the girl's home was built no sooner than six years ago in 2002. This decaying site she described must have been fairly distant from their plot of land, for its discovery would surely have postponed the house's construction until a less ominous area was claimed.

Also it seems that I have been lucky, in all looseness of the term, to acquire this item, for the child had told me her mother found her in possession of it immediately and sought to discard it. After only a brief read, the girl was told, "This is nothing a little lady should be reading," and instantly left it sunken deep into a refuse bin. It was only by the child's defiance that she snuck out of her room in the late hours of the night to retrieve it and hide it in her room.

This was all a short number of months ago. I met this girl last Thursday in the town nearest her home. I was venturing to collect a series of material pertaining to the region's obscure religious lore. She was being escorted by her father in-law inside a corner-hole of a bookshop. A friendly girl, full of smiles, so much that I am proud to know she was not old enough to comprehend the horrific material upon the pages, for it would have easily broken her whimsical spirit.

During my searches through the deeper niches of shelving, she approached me. After a slight amount of simple small talk, she asked, "What kind of stories do you like?" I dared not be plain on the matter, for it would be no good to implant an impression of my near-occultist interests on her so she may mention them to her parents and create an arousal of fear. Now that I consider it, as defiant a child as she was, any strong authority instructing her to forget the matter would surely lead her to a deeper desire to study it.

I gave vague descriptions, choosing my words carefully, and though these words didn't specifically imply the material within the journal, she assumed I may wish to have it. Perhaps my opening line of, "Things that most people wouldn't like to read" was a surefire tip.

In any case she informed me that she would bring the item with her to school the next day and I was welcomed to collect it immediately after classes were let out. There was always at least a ten minute delay from the final bell to when her mother would arrive, and that would be my opening. I didn't necessarily count on this book of her's to be a worthwhile find, however my conventional search methods in the area yielded no good fortune and I was willing to accept any lead given.

Promptly meeting after the final bell, she dug the old volume out from deep in her book bag. Fortunately it had not suffered any more from the clutter within. Upon taking a quick flip through different sections of it, I picked out a great number of words and phrases to my liking and rewarded her with a five dollar bill, crumpling it first and then instructing her that this transaction is not to be mentioned to her parents and that any questions of the bill should be answered that it was found on the school grounds. I had no worries of being punished on the matter, for I'm certain the parents would be glad that the book was lifted from her possession, but it would be best they didn't know she had kept it until this time.

It was perhaps by miracle that the book survived this long, assuming that it was legitimately left for the two decades its dating implied in the outdoor environment it had been found. The cover obviously suffered the most, and bore scratches and mold and aging quite hideous. But the majority of pages within was intact and allowed an easy read. "Easy," I say only referencing its legibility, not the nature of its content. In retrospect, I suppose it is ironic that the very profound embodiment of my interests should cause my wishing to seek a new hobby.

As for this book's content, at first I thought it to be a diary, but after three dozen pages filled with trivialities of daily life came an abrupt change of pace. From the well-versed paragraphs and grammar came a series of studies and notes, most of which pertaining to an ancient lore. What this lore is, I hadn't the slightest, for as I imply _ancient_, I mean vastly predating mankind and the creatures we know to walk the Earth today, perhaps even beyond the time of their most distant ancestors.

These notes eventually bled back into paragraph format, continuing detailed accounts of the owner's experience involving his studies. This final, excruciating segment of the journal, however, is nothing to be taken lightly. There is a strong touch of fantasy associated with it, but having made my own haphazard research, I find the probability of this fantastic story bearing a majority's worth of truth may be staggering.

I wish to describe the accounts including the studious notes and research left in this book. If only to create awareness - hell, if only to tell a grand story - of ancient and terrible, menacing things, I wish to paraphrase and describe this journal. I do ask that you, as the reader, please bear with me as I reach the end of my interpretation, for even without the knowledge I sought after reading these words, a chord of terror was struck at the very core of my soul.

This journal, scratched and seemingly rusted though no metal is present, belonged to a man of the name Adam Shore. As the many pages of proper diary will reveal, he was none too special of a character, both in his personal and professional life. His association with the accounts to come was not present or ever implied. Unless he meant to keep secret even to himself the fetish for terrible knowledge, Adam Shore, aged 23, stumbled upon his unfortunate trail of destruction (or so I can assume) entirely by accident.

I may only surmise that his life ended, in one way or another, given that there is a sudden collapse of material. A cliff-hanger of a most frightful nature, I judge. Yet with the utterly grotesque events that led to this lack of finality, I believe even you will wager that Adam did not bear to live with his knowledge.

The rising force began with the short scratches of notes taken on the third of April, 1979. They seemed to reference a succession of short volumes of forgotten text, yet they must have been easily accessible for a young, simple man to acquire them. Given that he displayed no apparent interest in secretive and arcane subjects, it is obvious that these texts were plainly written, in English, with a descriptive candor that caused reactions not unlike an unsightly, but oddly alluring, car wreck. In a single documented day, eight pages measuring seven inches high and slightly less than five inches across were congested with bulleted, circled and underlined verses of hand-written chaos. A great deal of fervor in this subject was instantly taken, and I can confidently say so because the previous entry was written the evening of April 2nd, jovially describing the current day and laughing of the events of April Fools.

From all these notes set down in one day, a library of terrible information is opened. Where there was a lack of detail, Adam accented his wording by every means known in modern literary technique, enticing himself and any other reader to delve within his darkest imaginings of evil nature and theory. Thus would explain my immediate turning to seek out the mentioned volumes and study them in detail myself, though the completion of this journal alone caused my sanity to ache of doubt already.

The broad outline of these pages described concepts wholly unlike that of conventional – or even Earthly – nature. Whatever entities the referenced articles implied were massive forces of mind. Perhaps the only detail that can be confidently gathered by any reader is that they, like humans, possessed what we know as emotions and motives. Just what these emotions and motives were no human understanding could define. The notes stated quite clearly that this state of mind transcended that of human basis. Good, evil, hate, love, jealousy, desire; none of these concepts were adopted, understood or even considered valid by the civilization soon to be described later in the notes.

We are merely three-dimensional critters on an infantile scale of evolution. The civilization – nay, the _race_ –that was only vaguely hinted at in these first eight insightful pages were, without question, far beyond us. So far beyond, Adam himself suggested, that any attempt to explain themselves would be as successful as a human explaining itself to a sample of bacteria.

Among these first notes were names, none of which I can discern for myself. They appear most alien, even in the attempt of spelling in English. Many were devoid of vowels, and others apparently meant to be monosyllabic utterances, though it was plain that no human tongue and set of lips could sound them out in fewer than three syllables. Whatever these irregular and fearful spellings may represent, they were obviously not meant for human language, both written and spoken.

Before these first eight pages were completed, however, I could swear that Adam shared a growing kinship with the writings. Certainly he could not pretend to comprehend all that was laid before him, for even one as versed in dark and unspoken lore as I couldn't grasp a solid mental foothold in this chaos. Mind you, my knowledge up until acquiring this journal couldn't prepare me in the slightest for what poor Adam was jotting as an intermediary.

Two days were missed in his writings before another date was penned with material following. An explanatory paragraph was offered, and in reading it I could only sympathize more with the writer. He had not stopped with his studies in those two days, and in fact described a total isolation from his routine agenda while his eyes continued to devour the texts he obtained. The boy was obviously becoming disturbed as his mind absorbed the volumes like a dry sponge to water.


	2. Chapter 2

In the time he didn't take to document his findings, Shore evidentially took measures to acquaint himself more with his new fascination. The most obvious step was his haphazard pronunciation guides regarding the awful spellings he mentioned, including those already given in the previous entry and a great number of new ones.

In finishing the notes made on April 6th, I had come to believe that these interdimensional beings existed, even among us today. It was a particularly horrifying belief to adopt, but in a few seconds of careful consideration I assured myself that this concept has not gone unvisited in the past, even aside from occult mysticism. Even simple authors of fiction explored this theme and unfolded endless possibilities. What continued to provoke fright, however, was the staggering realism of the volumes being referenced. Though there is little doubt that things of such nature may be standing beside everyone on every day, the documentation and proof of these instances are morbidly scarce.

Granted, these books were written in English, obviously translated from another, more reputable source. That this translation modified the contents there couldn't be any doubt. Throughout our modern history, translations have been known to bastardize the messages contained in the original languages. Whether these books exaggerated or diluted the mythology therein is the true question. Yet if I may provide my opinion, I'd wager that the original source must have been far more accurate and terrifying. It is within our modern nature to censor that which the powers that be believe should not be learned or even suggested. Even as the remaining content and the implications are wretched enough, it goes without saying that there are still truths unmentioned that would utterly destroy an untrained human mind.

The next entry was penned on the 8th of April, this time only gapping by a single day and containing seven pages of notes. As it is early implied in these pages, Adam had completed his absorption of the damned series and set down all that he could. Theories had been long exhausted in the first entry of these notes, though further elaboration on the creatures and their livelihood among us was present, not excluding more alien and unutterable words vainly defined by Shore's pronunciation methods. The final bit of subject matter, which conquered the rest within the seven pages in length, included the actual rituals and worship involving the unearthly beings. The details are surprisingly few, but perhaps can be accounted for by the obscurity of the beasts' existence.

A level of certainty in their being was reassured constantly, though, and while precise rituals and incantations were few, there remained generalized details describing massive events associated with them. Plus I can assume that Adam may have declined to record many of the specifics he learned. Even a morbid curiosity can be overruled with the sense to mercifully omit details far too wretched for one to grasp.

One account bore little surprise, and that was the production of a human-born spawn; a bastard child emerging from a supposed virgin mother eight months after a series of rites were practiced. My skepticism in this was peaked, as I gave little credit to the 'bastard prophet' scenario adopted by Christianity and the ancient Persian mythologies that predate it. Though this race of star-worthy and god-like beings most assuredly had motives and demanded cooperation, I'm quite fast to judge the lack of purpose that bearing a three-dimensional spawn presents.

Apparently, as I read further in this vein, this was not a singular even. Though it was by no means common, a number of youthful virgins were selected to birth these abominations over the many years this practice was instituted. And I do presume these infants were vastly inhuman, for the descriptions of the mothers at completion of birth – vague as they were – ultimately concluded that the poor girls do not survive. In fact, judging by some notes in which Adam directly quoted passages from his unspeakable volumes, the cryptic verses suggest that the children did not gestate in the uterus, nor did they exit their oddly located womb through the conventional tunnel. The idea provoked the most gruesome imagery of which I care not to elaborate more.

Nothing is told of the infants from that point on, and I believed it was safe to assume such a chaotic blend of Earthly flesh and otherworldly material could not survive long, if at all. Again, I'm none too fond of this mythical concept, so perhaps I'm giving the notion too little credit due to personal bias.

Incantations were not included in these particular notes, though they were sure to exist; Adam must have had mind undisturbed enough to consider this journal's passing on and omitted these specifics to save its future readers from damning themselves. Instead, he gave rough interpretations of how the rites translated and their purpose. Whereas most cult followings use verbal means to call their gods onto our Earthly plane or at least summon their power for ritualistic purposes, the following of these creatures didn't focus on such. In fact, the rites that brought forth half-beast children were perhaps the only means the sect called their deities.

Then there was nothing, a blank page in Adam's journal used to divide a new chapter in his increasingly unfortunate existence. It was after twelve days that the writings continued. They were mostly in paragraph form and gave accounts of activity rather than study. Though I was at first pleasantly surprised that he tore away from the malicious literature, something worse was hastily revealed. The "Burrow City" of V'lsshekt was discovered, and it could not have been any farther than an eighteen mile hike north of the village in which I obtained this cursed diary.

Poor Adam had found the site and made its last standing building a makeshift home. As he pronounced it a temple or chapel, I silently screamed and pleaded that he leave, much like one would vocalize warnings to a horror film's protagonist about to walk to his or her end.

His grammar was increasingly proper by this time. If the first thirty-six pages had not been present I would wager this young man to have been an educated and well-bred gentleman from the beginning. Yet the accounts provided signified that this consuming obsession led him to change as a person. I could feel him aging while I observed the transitions and it could not be doubted. Anyone who would take such a hands-on study of the matter would not be their previous selves. In fact, as Adam would start suggesting by this segment of the journal, he and anyone else should no longer see fit to exist. This was when my proper fear of his self-destruction began.

Though he felt less inclined to live, the prospect of deep discovery drove him further. This final segment of the journal would tell his personal accounts of not necessarily the literature pertaining to the entities, but his own experiences in their domain. My flesh crept like a thousand lumbering stag beetles from this point on.

The temple was barely capable of standing after the several centuries since its construction, eerily implying that settlers predating the Mayflower had stolen away from Europe. The materials were much like brick and mortar but fortified. Though the architecture resembled gothic chapels, it was far more jagged and foreboding. The materials were far advanced for the time and the scarce surrounding refuse that remained of other structures suggested that nothing less primitive and fragile than small yurts were the primary fashion of homes. The building stood at the fore in this unofficial 'village' and behind it was a slight raise in elevation that stretched about in a semi-circle.

This fault in elevation was intentionally landscaped, and though there was already a natural incline between the church's elevation and the land beyond the fault, the city town's limits was dug down and made level with the religious center. Along the inside wall of this steep incline were doors; circular concrete slabs fitted to holes no less than five foot in diameter. Even today's average male could easily slink his way into that underworld. More frightening still was that each seal contained a singular glass fitting. Windows.

There was very little reason to believe anything was taking residence in those tunnels by then, especially human life. But as Adam continued to observe the church's interior and the village exterior, he expressed that a sort of contact was being made. By the fourth night of his stay, the feeling of contact was growing to an alarmingly tangible presence, one he so dearly wished to dismiss as mere imagination. He never dared wander the outdoors in the dark hours, and by this time he felt inclined to never step outside the stone building's security, limited as it must have been.

He resolved to keep the chapel as dark as possible at all times. He stayed clear of the towering windows during the day and would only peer outside at night. No candles or flashlights were ever lit, confining his studies of the building's multitudinous hieroglyphs and decaying volumes of old human sprawling to daylight.

On the sixth night, as the invading sense was growing still, Adam found himself becoming more familiar with the source, and could almost make out a semblance of communication through telepathy. It was fractured at best and he conceded that the forces behind this communication were steadily trying to formulate a means of understanding him, and likewise allow him to understand them. Appropriately, though terrifying beyond words, his peerings toward the surrounding mound revealed a physical presence; a pair of small red lights were looking back at him from one of the burrow entrances. Adam's own words are as follows:

_I spied the first evidence of inhabitants tonight, and though I came in great interest to study whatever remaining civilization may have been here, I had certainly not planned to encounter any living beings to greet me._

_It was a pair of red pinpricks of gleaming light, spaced from each other so that I fancied they were eyes. They came from a doorway nearly twenty degrees away from the semi-circle's center. They were unblinking, unless they were uncannily blinking at the precise moments I was._

_Fear could not describe my emotions then, and cannot now. These eyes may have been staring directly at me. In fact, I am certain they were. Whatever presence that remains is fully aware of my invasion on their grounds. The attitude it takes toward me is still unknown at this time, but in my paranoid spying outside since that exchange of glances, I believe I may safely conclude that they do not leave their burrow home. At least not yet._


	3. Chapter 3

He goes on from there, apparently attempting to avoid mention of the inhabitants looking back at him. More so, he gave descriptions of the airy communications. He felt himself coming ever closer to gaining the precise imagery being shared. In the meantime the rousing feelings of this invasion were further changing him. Though pictures or words were not communicated yet, this connection into his body was creating an 'aura' of sorts; a conceptual black fog that instilled in him a definite vulnerability.

By daylight there wasn't much else to see. Adam had already perused the many remaining tablets and scriptures, most of which so taken by decay that not even the creators could make heads or tails of them. What little he still had to study was taken in very slowly, as he avoided, at all costs, being witnessed by the wary locals. Despite having been there a week and two days, nothing was gained from the building's contents, for any fashion of writing or design had no intermediate means of translation and he dare not risk exiting into the outdoors so he may collect materials from elsewhere and return.

He felt trapped and helpless. It was not unlike the theory of panopticon, a perfect prison monitored by only a solitary unseen guard, and any attempt at defying this guard's will could be most hazardous in a way Adam couldn't conceive. But that night, the tenth of his stay, there was no longer a single guard. From then on more pairs of eyes would be peering from the burrows' windows each night until every entrance was lit with small red eyes. Some even contained three eyes, perhaps more.

It was by the second week that the communications were clear, and once he actively responded they did not cease. He could not discern whether the attitude was malevolent or otherwise, and was in fear that these outer parties may in fact be some spawn of what he came to call the "Godlings." If they were so, then no human motive would ever be present and he could not gauge whether his life was in danger.

The creatures, having the innate ability to communicate by telepathy, never developed a spoken or written language, thus the only means of conversation with Adam was through visuals. This wasn't an inconvenience however, as the clear moving pictures presented to him could formulate ideas and descriptions more efficiently than words or writing. A real-time documentary was being sent directly to his brain, and I could only wonder how his mind didn't collapse upon itself within the first hour of conversation.

First they gave him a tour of the burrow city's innards. The entry tunnels continued at the width of their slabs a slight few yards before opening into spacious caverns. They were artificial, yet so ancient that stalagmites and stalactites were already well developed. The tunnel systems connecting caverns were precisely dug and smoothed, most of their surface being so smooth that one would believe they were inside pipework. The diameters were at least eight feet, allowing much taller humans or other beings easy travel.

Then the journey came into an opening grander than a Roman coliseum. Aside from various exit points in the same depth, there were also holes in the ground; tunnels leading much deeper into their city.

This was the most terrible leg of their tour, for in these greater depths were imperfections most hideous. The designs were identical, save for the tunnels being enlarged to a minimum of ten feet in diameter, yet so many damages were made. The floors were a loose soil, stirred and scraped by what could only be talons, and many points were not soil at all. Answering a prompt mental inquiry Adam had made about this foreign substance, the hosts showed him an oozing fluid plopping on the floor. In time, this sort of jelly would solidify as would clay, but would be much less fragile. He could not believe that this liquid was saliva, specifically from the Godlings' oldest generations.

Though he was quite disgusted and uncomfortable in learning these elder creatures' anatomy, he found some hope in the discovery that his hosts understood at least some human concepts, otherwise they would not have been able to recognize his curiosity. This made communication more promising and he did not hold back any future inquiries, fearful as he was of the answers.

In continuing the tour, the lower tunnel systems stretched much farther than the upper depths, perhaps as far as a twenty mile radius from where Adam stood then. Personally, I'm thankful the nearby villages were too small to consider construction of sewers, for they would undoubtedly be intersected by these colossal passages.

Adam wished to understand their means of reproduction and inquired appropriately. He thought it difficult to interpret, for our means of breeding must be vastly different from theirs, therefore depicting an example of our courtships would not have helped ask the question. But the hosts did comprehend and shed light on a subject that disturbed this poor fellow the most.

The creatures, even in their most advanced generations, were asexual. They contained some semblance of both male and female organs, but they did not intermingle and therefore our manner of reproduction was impossible. It was just as well, they explained, for it would have been pointless to breed amongst them; all generations still carried the knowledge and dogma that they must breed with humans and further adapt to the Earthly environments.

Once in a great while they would come into possession a human female aged appropriately to carry a child. Their bodies would be stripped of clothing and left sealed in relatively small chambers. Then a member of the creatures' latest generation would enter the room and begin the ritual. Having no phallic organs to speak of, the creature would eject hundreds of billions of spores into the room, hissing as a conical cloud of mossy-green particles sprayed into the air. Each tiny spore contained their seed, and once the spores came upon a fleshy or wet surface, the sperm within would jettison and seek their goal. This was usually done on a daily basis for up to a month, given that the Godlings knew too little about female human anatomy to pinpoint their ovulations.

Upon insemination the embryo would gestate at an alarming rate, requiring no food or liquids to survive even in the later stages. After a mere two weeks, the embryo would be larger than a human infant ready to be birthed. They develop talons by this time, evidentially, for they take a most brutal route through the bearer's abdomen. I can't fathom the pain involved, or the haunting emotions the girls must have felt while barely kept alive and sedated with poisons until the final act played.

This may have been the worst of the unspeakable details regarding the creatures, but certainly not the end. Up to that point, the hosts were only painting pictures of shadows for Adam to replace what he wasn't prepared to see. I will read Adam's own words on what they revealed behind these shadows:

_I would not have believed something like them to exist, even if legitimate photographs and written history supported them. But with their likeness weighted so heavily and factually into my mind I cannot doubt them. My only remaining reservation is wondering what law of nature had been broken to allow them to coexist with us._

_They are a fleshy and bulky being, and though they successfully adapted a bipedal humanoid form, they were obviously not originally built in any such fashion beyond the confines of our three dimensions. The heads are as thick as ours from one ear cavity to the other. They do not possess earlobes and apparently can't pick up sounds unless double the normal volume we can hear or directed precisely toward them. The length of their heads from back to front is noticeably greater than ours. Most have no mouths, but early generations have appendages not unlike elephant trunks protruding where their nose should be. Current generations have much shorter trunks that lobe from the center of their face and reattach at the chin, no longer serving any purpose. Much of the rear of their heads is pulpy croppings of brown rubbery flesh, and one can see the beginnings of their spinal cord above the neck as it pushes out nearly a full inch from the surrounding skin._

_Their torso is massive and misshaped. I could not tell exactly how the ribcage is designed, yet I wager a guess that the sternum extends much farther down than ours and is somehow barbed or ribbed, creating the appearance of a second spine on the front of their bodies. The skin over their torso is stretched tightly, allowing for little pivotal movements and also inclining the skin from their dual spines so little muscle mass is viewable except for along their sides._

_On their backs the true spine lobes out farther between where we would locate the diaphragm and pelvis. Shortly after the exterior visuals were presented, I was informed that this was because of their internal organs, which were comprised mainly of our own (save for intestines) with an added "Nutritional Foundry," as I've come to call it. Located toward their back where the spinal lobing occurs is a large extra organ that is specifically designed to breed unique bacteria, which in turn is funneled into the stomach and then digested for nutrients. This system efficiently provides an automated nutritional balance which creates no waste except for harmless, unscented gasses, which are ventilated out a small orifice between their legs._

_The legs are disproportionately short, perhaps two-thirds the length of an average man. They are muscular though, and well capable of supporting the massive girth of the creatures. Yet being so stubby in size, maintaining balance is sometimes difficult, hence their arms, which are easily an extra foot in length and triple-jointed. It isn't uncommon to see them in a posture like that of a gorilla, though they generally maintain a bipedal posture and use a single arm every few steps to simply recalibrate their balance as though a crutch._

_What shocked me the most is that these are considered to be the most like human of their kind! All surviving generations are virtually immortal, capable of living for hundreds more millennia. The oldest and most primitive of mind may be considered Elders, but they do little other than stagnate and feed on rodents, seeing as their scale of evolution does not equip them with a Nutritional Foundry._


	4. Chapter 4

From this passage of vile descriptors I could only absorb so much in one passing. The details frightened me so that it took several readings to fully piece together the things that lurk in that burrow city. It also instilled mixed feelings in my perception of Adam's given name of "Godlings," for they are certainly born of extraordinary origins, yet their image and perceived temperament would brand them monsters.

Also from these paragraphs I took sympathy with Adam's concern of the elder generations' sprawling tunnels, for I am certain that a town north of where I obtained this book had begun implementing a sewer system in the mid-90's. By the vague details given I suppose that these tunnels are in fact deeper than any sewer system yet built, but the possibility of intersection is still a frightening one.

As I continue reading this entry it became apparent that Adam was beginning to lose his footing on reality. The creatures' telepathic connection was so forceful and prolific that any human mind would suffer some measure of disconnect from their immediate faculties. When he found time to notice and record, Adam realized that he had missed many a meal - which consisted only of dry snacks and canned provisions he brought for a prolonged study - and had several times lost awareness of his need to eliminate waste. The poor fellow had finally come to realize after a 16-day residence in that chapel that he was in dire need of sanitation, but it would be all he could muster simply to push open the tattered remains of a wooden door before he could exit and find his way home. This is also assuming he could remember what direction he came from in the first place.

Upon twenty days, Adam would begin pleading to the creatures that they have burdened him so, and he required at least a temporary leave to restock his food supply and wash himself. Having the constant connection, the things were already aware that Adam has missed a great number of meals, his soiled clothing in desperate need of replacement and cleaning. Yet they apparently cared not for these plights. It is uncertain if they simply had no understanding of empathy, or if they found these needs of ours trivialities, or something else. They continued to stream their thoughts and histories, each one of the four hundred who still lived below that mound, until Adam became consumed with them against his will. It wasn't long after that he professed a more total disconnect from his humanity, slowly wasting away without food and limited water.

On the twenty-fourth day, after Adam had resigned himself to a slow death by starvation, the images abruptly ceased. As acutely aware as his mind had become – "stretched," as he once described it – he had lost count of the individual narratives of the creatures' lives. He supposed that it must have indeed been all inhabitants of the mound already, and since the grueling introduction to their society and histories had been exhausted, nothing else remained to tell.

_"They have no thoughts!"_ Adam discovered hours after the mental silence began. Even then the creatures did not react to his excitement, likely because they didn't understand the concepts of relief and gratitude that his mind was producing.

The revelation was a fierce ally in Adam's recovery. There must be some manner of evolution that the creatures either have yet to achieve or have overshot completely. For now their minds, for lack of a better word, are not instruments of thought but merely the storage of memory and the means of communication. How they behave and perceive the world must be under the command of a wholly different organ than we humans are accustomed to, if not left to the whims of simple muscle memory and instinct, which seems unlikely given their formulated reception to their human visitor.

Adam forced himself out of the decrepit chapel and scoured the surrounding woods for berry bushes and edible roots, and with a sense of freedom returned to him he set off for his home. That night he bathed and slept comfortably in his own apartment. He slept long, yet woke late in the day still weary from his ordeal. The night had brought awful dreams upon him; nightmares of nearly palpable realism which disallowed him any comfort of things outside of that church and the burrows beyond it. His mind was utterly taken by the things, and it willed him to return.

The entry of his escape was written in retrospect upon his arrival back to the fallen chapel, having left the journal behind. His writing had more character now, free from the sentence structures of an automated hand and a mind fragmented by the battery of unwanted information. And this was the most concerning symptom I've noticed – given his freedom of mind back, he is still intent on keeping the company of the Godlings. It's a significant boon that his sanity was not so wracked as to attempt a physical meeting with the things.

He soon began projecting himself to the creatures, conjuring his own mental images of their underground lair. With every mistake he made in the visualizing, the Godlings corrected him. In a short number of days – he'd stopped dating his material by this time – he had mapped the entirety of the tunnels in his memory. The following passage proves the beginning of his eventual collapse:

_There is something truly godly about them, I think. The tunnels are crude, and any semblance of structures or doorways are only that of clay formed by their spittle and dirt. Yet the dimensions and symmetry are unique and beyond the considerations of any architect in human history, modern and ancient alike. It's more than aestheticism, though; they are prepared for their future generations._

_I have imagined the possibilities myself and they have confirmed, in their own way, that they cannot reach a state of near-humanity. There is a purpose to their choice in us for their invasion into a three-dimensional state. Something about our chemistry and channels of electricity that presents an opportunity for them. Upon a certain degree of humanization, their awareness will be able to utilize our faculties in ways we can only fathom in fantastical works of art and literature. The act of "playing God" is a possibility, and they are able to reach it through our genes._

_Whether or not we are naturally able to attain this gift, many generations from now, is not under the Godlings' consideration. It may yet be possible, but they are naturally more attuned. What this ability – no, this _ascension_ – must look like I couldn't say, and its notion is mere conjecture as it is. Yet I oddly feel determined to see it done, or rather be an instrument for the time being. I could help them, if only they understood my intentions and could tell me how._

_I suppose there's only one way for certain. They need to evolve, and evolution takes generations._

Adam was no longer a pitiable human being anymore, not after the considerations in these pages. His ventures were sparsely documented beyond this point, the most relevant of details pointing to that rickety shrine where this journal was found. Though he didn't speak of it directly, there was obviously an element of worship to his routine.

Now I feel the need to tell you that I, having a somewhat less sound mind than before, have personally inspected that campsite and shrine. The wooden platform was more than a pulpit for him to preach to an imaginary audience, for beneath it was a hole. Down its shaft stood a metal latter, rusted from its years of disuse, and I dared not descend, whether for the risk of my body falling or my sanity elapsing is uncertain. I could only glean Adam's intent, and that much was only a confirmation; he meant to sneak women down to the creatures' network, and for all I can tell he may have been successful for a time.

As lucid as Adam's thoughts had been for his last days, he was still no more among us as a decent, coherent human as when the creatures had nearly broken his mind near the mound. Knowing the danger, I count myself lucky to have resisted the temptation to venture there. But the danger of others becoming as this young man did still presents itself. Many times have I felt it my duty to find the scene and ensure no one else is, or will be, ensnared by madness.

Although, what is the definition of madness anymore? Given his experiences and study, Adam only acted on the desire to be part of something greater than himself, regardless of sacrifice. Are we not all fond of such an aspiration, if not aspiring for it already?

Maybe not. At least I can't sympathize. But if anyone reads this story of mine, I hope there is a sensible and resourceful one among you that can bring the ceiling of that wretched burrow city down on top of its denizens. Humanity – perhaps the entire universe as we understand it – cannot be safe as long as the Godlings exist. Nor can we abide retainers like Adam, who may yet be among us. I truly conducted a thorough search, and his remains were nowhere to be found. The only burial his body must have received was by way of that dark shaft leading the underworld he so admired.


End file.
